Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-11-11
Cooking Coffee.

menu III contracting Ior everything the
soldier ate, drank, and wore, and when
colossal fortunes were thus coined out
of the necessities of the soldier, it is
pleasant to find one great commodity
that entered so largely into the very
life as we'll as the comfort of the
armies in which there was no fraud.
The coffee given us was uniformly
good.
Perhaps some of my comrades will
think that tobacco should be named
as one of the chief indispensables of
the soldier. 1t really was SO, and there
were times when it was issued free
with the ration, and other times, pretty
far down in Dixie, when the boys
issued it to themselves whenever they
could lay hands on it. Not using it
myself, I still did not fail to observe
the great consolation that it gave to all
soldiers, high and low, whose lot was
cast where mine was. can do no bet
ter than to furnish to such comrades
somebody's very picturesque lines on
the subject:
Hook upon this round, green ball,
Where root5 sing and warriors fight,
Where death 80 surely sizes ALL
And brave mon struggle for the right;
Where, mid the din and woe and strife,
Stout hearts still bear this heavy life;
And see that NIL the mighty men,
Whose deeds, like beacons, shine afar,
Who weld the sword and Weld the pen,
Each loves and smokes his good cigar!
In spite of oil that has been spoke,
The wreath of Fames a wreath of smoke.
And turning hence mine eyes, bend
To heaven, and see that every star
Is but tho burning. flaming end
OF some tall angels lit cigar
And where the Milky Way still dashes,
Is but the place they knock their ashes!
And the bareback.
For the benefit of ignorant citizens
and the new generation it may be ex-
planned that this great staff of the sol
der was issued habitually in exactly the
shape of soda cracker. The parallel
ceases with shape. They were hard
emphatically hard.
A box of them was once noticed with
the brand, "B. C.-6o3." The meaning
was not evident, but the soldiers were
not at loss for an Interpretation. ut
is the date of making" said one, 1868
years before Christi"
The recruits, and all green soldiers,
were shy of them at first; but they
soon came to it. The bareback would
stand any climate. They were never
fresh, never stale. They were insect
proof. The bugs got into the holes,
and could make no impression. They
had to give it up. Experience made
the soldier wise, and taught him that a
laversack full of hard-tack was bless
ing. He ate them with his bacon; he
fried them; he stewed them; he even
made buildings of them. No veteran
will ever go back on bareback.
Soon after the close of the war one
of the very best of soldier-songs, or
Hard Tack" was published anony
mously. would greatly like to learr
who wrote it. Here it is:
Would you be soldier, daddy?
| Come and serve your Uncle Saml
He hepceforth must be your daddy,
| And Columbia your dam.
| Do YOU like salt-horse and beans?
| Do You know what hard-tack means?
Jolly hard tack, tack, tack, tack
That's tho stuff you have to crackl
Do YOU want to be q soldier?
| Nows the time to put in play,
! What your good old granny told you
| OF the Revolution day.
| What had their brave Jaws 10 cne".
| Sometimes nothing-what have you!
Jolly hard-tack tack, tack, tack
That's the stuff you have to crack!
Want to be soldier. do you?
| "Vou must march through swamp and siudge
Ava though balls go through and through you,
blaze away and never bulge.
But when muskets go crack, CRACK
| RITE yonr cartridge and hard' Jack;
| Joiiy hard- tack, tack, tack, tack
wI,at,a the stuff you have to crack! ..